sions in the ancient chroniclers. Coins have been found in sufficient quantities to assure us that it was occupied by the Romans, and that it was a station of great importance is proved clearly by the number of Roman roads which are traced from it as a centre branching off in different directions. Three roads from the great eastern entrance ran, one to Silchester (Calleva) on its way to London; a second direct to Winchester (Venta Belgarum) and so on to the south-eastern coast; and a third to Dorchester (Durnovaria). Another road is traced in a westerly direction towards the Severn; and a fifth is believed to have been traced in the direction of the Hampshire coast. These circumstances, combined with the position of Old Sarum when compared with the Roman Itineraries, leave no room for doubt that these extraordinary entrenchments belonged to the town of Sorbiodunum. It has been assumed that the character of the earthworks, and its peculiar condition, prove it to have been an ancient city of the Britons before it was occupied by the Romans, but this is nothing more than an assumption, and the fact that it seems to have been totally unknown to Ptolemy, appears to me to militate against it. The old notion that Roman towns and stations were all built in accordance with one form and design has now been exploded; and we can easily imagine the Roman conquerors fixing upon a site so well

calculated for a town which should protect the rich districts to the northeast and south-east from the remains of hostile tribes, who would still find a shelter in the wild country to the west, and making it doubly strong by artificial entrenchments of the massive character of those which now exist at Old Sarum. The general form of Old Sarum, with its citadel in the middle, and its entrenchments around, reminds me in some degree, though on a much larger scale, of that of Bramber in Sussex, which is supposed to be the Roman Portus Adurni. Sorbiodunum is first named in the Itinerary of Antoninus, and is not mentioned, I think, in any other Roman writer. Richard of Cirencester places it among the ten cities in Britain under the Latian law, which implies the possession of very extensive municipal privileges; and, whatever doubts may be entertained with regard to Richard's book as it is now known, I am inclined to believe that these lists are correct. It was certainly a place of importance at the period of the occupation of this part of the island by the Saxons, who retained its Roman name under the corrupted form of Searo-byrig, which literally means Sorbiodunum-burgh. We learn from the Anglo-Saxon chronicle that in the year 552 Cynric, who had landed with his father on the British shore about sixty years before, "fought against the Britons at the place which is called Searo-byrig, and he put the

Britons to flight." Until this time Sorbiodunum had evidently retained its independence; but immediately after the event just mentioned, it no doubt capitulated with the invaders.

We have now to deal with Searobyrig as an Anglo-Saxon town, and it seems to have lost none of its importance. It was no doubt to protect it that King Alfred, within a month after his accession to the throne, hazarded a battle with very inferior numbers against the Danish invaders at Wilton, where, after a long struggle, the Saxons were defeated; and he soon afterwards showed his anxiety for the preservation of this place by ordering its fortifications to be repaired and strengthened with pallisades. It appears to have remained a place of security during this and the following century, and its importance is proved by the circumstance that in the year 960 King Edgar held here a national council or parliament (the witena-gemot) to consult on the means of preventing the attacks of the Danes. During the later ravages of these invaders, in the year 1003, it appears to have fallen into the hands of Swegn, after he had plundered and burnt the neighbouring town of Wilton, though it is not stated what degree of injury it suffered at that time. It is probable, however, that the injury was not great, as it was again a flourishing place in the reign of Edward the Confessor, while Wilton, though a bishop's see, had sunk into comparative insignificance.

Thus we can trace the continued existence of this ancient town, under the names of Sorbiodunum and Searobyrig, during the Roman and Saxon periods. The old form of the name appears to have been entirely forgotten, for its Saxon name was now Latinised into Sarum, while the Normans corrupted the Saxon name into Saresbires or Sarisbirie and (r and 7 being interchangeable letters) Salisbirie, from which the modern name is taken. Down to this time it is probable that the whole town was contained within the entrenchments. Among its ecclesiastical edifices was a nunnery dedicated to St. Mary, to which Edith, the queen of Edward the Confessor, gave lands at Shorstan; and in this reign at least the town possessed a mint, as a coin of Edward has been found with an in

scription stating it to have been struck by "Godred at Sarum."

The lordship of Sarum was given by William the Conqueror to his nephew Osmund lord of Seez, and a strong garrison was placed in the castle. The town continued to be a place of so much importance, that in 1076 the bishopric of Wilton was removed to it. Ten years afterwards William the Conqueror held a parliament here, with the Anglo-Saxon formalities; a similar parliament was held here in 1096 by his successor; and Henry I. held his court at Old Sarum in 1100, immediately after his accession to the throne.

After it became an episcopal see, Sarum (the name by which it was best known) was destined to hold a prominent place in our ecclesiastical annals. Osmund, the second bishop, commenced what was then considered a noble cathedral, which was finished about the beginning of the year 1091; and more than this, he drew up a new ritual for the use of cathedrals and larger ecclesiastical establishments, which became the grand model of a large portion of the English church, and was celebrated down to the time of the Reformation as the liturgy ad usum Sarum. The original liturgy of bishop Osmund is still preserved at Salisbury. Henry I. gave the see of Sarum to his chancellor Roger, who was a great benefactor to the cathedral, and who not only embellished the cathedral itself, but repaired and improved the fortifications of the town and castle. In 1116, a parliament was held here for the purpose of fixing the succession to the crown of England. Under Stephen, the castle of Sarum was occupied by the party opposed to the crown, and became so obnoxious to that monarch that he gave orders for the destruction of the monastery and church adjoining the castle, a circumstance which enlightens us further on the ecclesiastical structures in the town; and he intended to dismantle the castle also. It is not necessary to notice the different allusions to this place which show its importance down to the end of the twelfth century. About that time the desire was becoming stronger and stronger on the part of the clergy to remove their church into the plain. There were various reasons for this feeling. In this elevated position there

was a want of water, and various other incommodities, which were felt the more severely, from the view of the plentifully irrigated valley below. These were borne as long as they were compensated by the sense of security which the place afforded, but now this was of less importance. Moreover, in this elevated spot, the church was exposed to wind and storm to such a degree that within a few days of the completion of Bishop Osmund's cathedral, its tower and roof were partially destroyed by lightning. Another grievance was added to these by the increasing disagreements between the clergy and the garrison of the citadel. Old John Aubrey, in his Natural History of Wiltshire, edited by Mr. Britton, gives a curious traditional account of the inconveniences to which the clergy of Sarum were sometimes exposed :

The following account (he says) I had from the right reverend, learned, and industrious Seth Ward, lord bishop of Sarum, who had taken the pains to peruse all the old records of the church that had

been clung together and untouched for perhaps two hundred years. Within this castle of Old Sarum, on the east side, stood the cathedral church; the tuft and site is yet discernable; which being seated so high was so obnoxious to the weather, that when the wind did blow they could not hear the priest say mass. But this was not the only inconvenience. The soldiers of the castle and the priests could never agree; and one day, when they were gone without the castle in procession, the soldiers kept them out all night, or longer; whereupon the bishop, being much troubled, cheered them up as well as he could, and told them he would study to accommodate them better. In order thereunto he rode several times to the lady abbess at Wilton, to have bought or exchanged a piece of ground of her ladyship to build a church and houses for the priests. A poor woman, at Quidhampton, that was spinning in the street, said to one of her neighbours," I marvel what the matter is that the bishop makes so many visits to my lady; I trow he intends to marry her." Well, the bishop and her ladyship did not conclude about the land, and the bishop dreamt that the Virgin Mary came to him, and brought would have him build his church there,

him to or told him of Merrifield; she

and dedicate it to her. Merrifield was a

great field or meadow where the city of New Sarum stands, and did belong to the bishop, as now the whole city belongs to him.

It was Richard Poor, bishop of Sarum from 1217 to 1229, who carried this great design into execution. Having obtained the authority of the king and the pope for his undertaking, he laid the foundations of the cathedral of modern Salisbury in the year 1220, and the building proceeded with so much rapidity, that in 1225 it was fit for the celebration of divine service. Hither the episcopal see was now removed, although a body of clergy was still left to officiate in the old cathedral upon the hill, and for a while the ancient city of Sarum continued to be an important borough town, and there was no little rivalry between the old city and the new one. However, the departure of the bishop and his clergy had caused a great revolution in the old town. They and their dependents, with the people connected with the garrison, appear to have formed the main body of the inhabitants within the entrenchments. As was usually

the case under such circumstances, a new town had been gradually forming, which originated probably in a few houses built beside the old Roman road leading down from the fortress. This gradually formed itself into an extensive suburb, spreading over the bank which slopes down from the eastern entrance towards Salisbury, and this was surrounded with a wall, and formed chiefly the medieval municipal borough. There was still more than one church within the old town, and apparently some other ecclesiastical establishments. It is probable that the old cathedral of Osmund gradually fell into neglect, and when, in 1331, materials were wanting for the new edifice in the plain, letters patent were obtained from Edward III. giving to the bishop and chapter all the walls of the former cathedral of Old Sarum, and of the houses which had belonged to the bishop and canons within the castle of Sarum, for the inprovement of the church of New Sarum, and of the close thereto belonging. The church and other buildings were accordingly demolished, and appear to have been employed in completing Salisbury spire, and in building the wall of the close, which is filled with stones exhibiting sculpture of the Norman period. From this time the destruction of the city of Old Salisbury appears to have gone on

very rapidly. Leland, who visited it in the reign of Henry VIII. gives the following account of its appearance at that time:

Osmund Earl of Dorchester, afterwards Bishop of Salisbury, erected his cathedral church in the west part of the town, and also his palace, whereof no token, but only a chapel of our lady yet standing and maintained. There was a parish of the Holy Rood, besides, in Old Salisbury; and another over the east gate, whereof some tokens yet remain. I do not perceive that there were any more gates in Old Salisbury than two, one by east and another by west. Without each of these gates was a fair suburb. In the east suburb was a parish church of St. John, and yet there is a chapel standing. There have been houses in time of mind inhabited in the east suburb of Old Sarum (that is, in the borough); now there is not one house, neither within Old Sarum nor without, inhabited. There was a right fair and strong castle within Old Salisbury, belonging to the Earls of Salisbury, especially the Longespees; I read that one Walter was the first earl after the Con

quest. Much notable ruinous building of

the castle yet remaineth.

One would imagine that Leland was speaking of a town which had ceased to exist a thousand years ago, rather than of what had been within two centuries a flourishing city. It appears that the walls of the town and castle still remained, for we learn from a

nearly contemporary record that the walls about Old Sarum were demolished in 1608, and in the churchwardens' books money is accounted for as having been paid for a load of stones from the castle in 1624. Pepys, describing his journey from Hungerford to Salisbury, over the plain, in the June of 1668, says he came "to Salisbury by night; but before I came to the town I saw a great fortification, and there light, and to it and in it, and find it prodigious, so as to fright me to be in it all alone at that time of night, it being dark. I understand since it to be that that is called Old Sarum." It would not be easy to give a simpler and more expressive picture of desolation.

I have traced the medieval history of this ancient city with the more care, because it furnishes an interesting lesson to the antiquary. We are accustomed to wonder at the disappearance of Roman towns, where no adequate cause seems to present itself, and at the accumulation of earth which has

buried them; yet here is a town which was standing at a recent period, with a cathedral and palace, and churches, and other buildings, and strongly walled, and yet its site at the present time is as bare of any remains of its former stateliness as almost any Roman site in the island.* The accompanying bird's-eye view, made from